Question for Brits

In England or the UK in general, what’s the most common language you’ll hear spoken other than english?

Obviously here in the US it’s Spanish, you hear Spanish spoken pretty much everywhere you go. Walking down the street in say, London, what non-english language are you most likely to hear in passing?

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Burnley123 · 41-45, M

We don't often hear other languages much and there isn't one in particular.

If you know Muslims, then you will hear Urdu or Arabic. If you live in London, then you will hear a whole range of languages.

At school, French and German are probably the most common 'second languages; taught, followed by Spanish or Italian. Honestly, we are pretty bad at languages because we are an island and because everyone else speaks English.

Years ago, I worked for a holiday company and we sometimes got complaints from our customers visiting the south of France because the locals could not speak English. In most European holiday resorts, they hire people who speak English to help the Brits and our customers were pissed off that we didn't (because we couldn't).

Strictmichael75 · 61-69, M

@Burnley123 The UK stopped teaching languages in schools and now there are big problems
The FO has problems recruiting staff!

Zeuro · 26-30, F

@Burnley123 interesting, a lot different than here in the US, especially here in California where about 30% of people speak Spanish. At my work I get non english speakers every day

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@Zeuro London really is the exception. It's one of the most multicultural and multilingual cities in the world.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@Strictmichael75 [quote]UK stopped teaching languages in schools [/quote]
Really? When did that happen, if it did?

As for the FO having trouble recruiting people who can speak a foreign language, that has next to nothing to do with schools teaching languages. Hardly anyone I know in the UK who did well at French in school is able to actually hold a conversation in it even though they got near perfect marks in exams.

supersnipe · 61-69, M

@ninalanyon You have to get quite a bit beyond school (i.e. GCSE) level to become proficient enough to earn your living in a foreign language.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@supersnipe Strange that because high school students in Norway generally speak English quite well enough to hold down a job. Unfortunately it's not because Norwegian schools are better at teaching languages, it's simply because the students find it useful.

In my opinion schools should stop teaching languages and instead just send the students for a year to ordinary schools in a country that speaks the desired language. Immersion is much faster and considerably less painful than formal class room tuition.

Or even better, as soon as the children are fluent in their mother tongue send them to a kindergarten that only speaks the target language. My children went to Norwegian kindergarten half time from the age of three and a half. Well within a year they were indistinguishable from the natives and they had no instruction at all.

supersnipe · 61-69, M

@ninalanyon One of my sisters hosted some Ukrainian refugees and the children went to the school down the road. They learnt English pretty fast. Their mother was a determined lady who 'saw the point' and picked it up quite quickly too.

My comments about foreign languages here are based on my own experience. On leaving school, though I was one of the best performers in my class in French, I was nowhere near fluent at GCE 'O'-level (now GCSE and taken at 16).[i] That [/i]took a few more years, and I only really got confident after a couple of terms of university.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@supersnipe Absolutely. I 'studied' French for six years and gave up after failing my French O-level twice. It was a dismal experience, and I ended up scarcely better at French than i was at Latin. I hitchhiked to Amsterdam and back via Belgium in the mid-70s with a girl who had an A in A-level French and she was almost totally unable to understand anything that Belgian French speakers said.

Yet after only a hundred hours of instruction in Norwegian and almost no formal practice I was in practice fluent for ordinary every day purposes after five years of living in the country despite all my colleagues preferring to speak English to me.

So in my opinion immersion is the only way to do it and the easiest way to get immersion is to go where the language is useful.